Friday Highlander - My Story

I hope everyone out there is is resting up from the GP weekend. Overall the weekend was a good one with plenty of Magic to be played. This was the first GP in Australia run by Chain Link Events and was by no means a poor tournament experience. I did have some issues on site but that is for a different post. The next few posts will explore the Highlander event, my role within it, coverage of the final two matches at the top table, and a rundown of the whole event.

I had only decided the day before that I would definitely be playing in the highlander event bar another severe attack of my migraines. I borrowed what I needed from friends and managed to get the deck together. I even had a decklist written out before I was told that the event would be played at Regular REL and therefore did not require decklists. 

I had decided to bring my version of Channel-Mirror to the tournament as my weapon of choice for taking down the tournament. I believed that Channel was one of the best chances for me to take down the event as I had not played much highlander in the weeks preceding the event due to my condition making travel to tournaments not really viable. It had not changed its position in the metagame, nor had its optimal deck construction changed heavily so I knew my previous experience would still be relevant. Channel-Mirror is a rather strong combo deck that can be quite resilient to many of the common avenues of attack against traditional combo decks such as counters or graveyard hate. The problem with the deck is that it can be inconsistent at times, needing to draw the “right” hands etc. I have often said that Channel is the best deck in the format if you are willing to be lucky. In this particular tournament however I was not lucky. I ended my tournament at 1-2 after a nightmare round one and a rather unlucky game three in round two I decided that I would play one final round before dropping to do coverage.

The list I devised and played was not too dissimilar from standard lists for Channel Mirror. The erratic nature of the decks opening hands and lack of great matchups (despite the similar lack of poor matchups) has left few pilots with a great amount of experience with or against the deck. Perhaps the inconsistency of the combo should resign the deck to the annals of history but I do enjoy playing it and it is certainly one of the best decks to goldfish. It’s just so different from every other deck in Magic which makes it refreshing to play.

The decklist I would have registered had the event been Competitive REL would have been:

You will have to forgive missing Duress/Thoughtseize in the mainboard

Bloodstained Mire
Wooded Foothills
Misty Rainforest
Polluted Delta
Verdant Catacombs
Tropical Island
Underground Sea
Bayou
Watery Grave
Overgrown Tomb
City of Brass
Mana Confluence
Peat Bog
Hickory Woodlot
Chrome Mox
Lotus Petal
Mox Diamond
Sensei’s Divining Top
Darkwater Egg
Shadowblood Egg
Chromatic Sphere
Chromatic Star
Kaleidostone
Scroll Rack
Implements of Sacrifice
Pentad Prism
Skyship Weatherlight
Lich’s Mirror
Deathrite Shaman
Wild Cantor
Birds of Paradise
Elves of Deep Shadow
Dimir Infiltrator
Elvish Spirit Guide
Composite Golem
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Eladmri’s Vineyard
Gitaxian Probe
Ponder
Thoughtseize
Duress
Inquisition of Kozilek
Personal Tutor (1)
Regrowth
Channel (2)
Demonic Tutor (3)
Grim Tutor
Fabricate
Rhystic Tutor
Diabolic Tutor
Increasing Ambition
Dark Ritual
Nature’s Claim
Spell Pierce
Muddle the Mixture (1)
Shred Memory
Abrupt Decay
Cabal Ritual
Into the Roil
Brainstorm

SB: Forest
SB: Shield Sphere
SB: Dystopia
SB: Massacre
SB: Slaughter Pact
SB: Elixer of Immortality
SB: Pack Rat
SB: Planar Portal
SB: Sadistic Sacrament
SB: Heroes Reunion
SB: Unmask
SB: Pernicious Deed
SB: Xantid Swarm
SB: Dark Confidant
SB: Nihil Spellbomb

For those who are not familiar with the deck I will give a quick rundown (I will provide a more in depth review at a later date). The deck’s combo involves finding and casting Channel which gives you the ability to pay one life at instant speed to add a single colourless mana to your mana pool. The important clause here is that you gain this ability until end of turn, you don’t have to decide how much life you want to pay then and there. Once you have this ability you use this colourless mana to cycle through your deck using the tutors and baubles to find a Lich’s Mirror (usually) which has the replacement effect of when you die you shuffle up all cards in play, your hand, and cards in your graveyard, and then you draw seven cards and your life total becomes 20. You then use the new seven cards at your disposal to cycle through your deck once again and repeat Ad Nauseum. Quite often you announce a spell such as a tutor and hold priority and kill yourself using the Channel ability. This lets you draw seven new cards and then resolve the tutor to find the Mirror again.

Once you have enough cards/mana at your disposal you find the Emrakul which triggers and additional turn. If your opponent can answer the Emrakul after you swing (and your opponent does not scoop to the first Emrakul casting) you ensure you can keep going off using the Mirror to gain more and more additional turns. In full competitive mode you can use this to indefinitely prolong the game (particularly if you are comboing in game 1). Because there is no loop happening in this combo you can continue to combo without risking being called for slow play if you continue to make your plays in a timely manner. Each time you mirror (without a tutor on the stack) you are risking that you draw 7 lands and cannot continue the combo.

{Tournament Report}

My first round was against eventual champion Paul Mitchell who was on his U/R Blue Moon list. As with the Modern lists it is a strong control deck which uses Blood Moon as an essential lock piece against many of the greedy 3+ colour mana bases that litter 7pt Highlander. With even some mono Red lists suffering under a Blood Moon it is a clearly powerful play and a great cornerstone for the always powerful U/R shell.

The games were quick, vicious and in my opponents favour. In the first game I kept a decent hand which unfortunately faltered when I played blindly into Force of Will, Mental Misstep, Izzet Charm, and Mana Leak; each time assuming that he must have been spent. Against the blue decks you have to keep throwing bombs at your opponent until one sticks and unfortunately for me after we were both spent my opponents’ deck was much better at recovering than my own. After drawing a few useless mana rocks a Thundermaw Hellkite quickly ended the game.

The second game was defined by an early Blood Moon and Paul was able to effectively keep me off abrupt decay mana with the help of a Null Rod. I had made an error in sideboarding by siding out my Into the Roil which left me short of an additional out which again in hindsight would have been useful in the situation I found myself in.

0-1 (0-2 games)

In Round two I managed to lose the dream matchup. My opponent, Karill Radvaisky, was running a three colour, no land destruction, no counterspell, and no discard deck. Despite being on the play in game one and three I managed to lose. This match showcases why this deck is not as popular is it could be. I almost considered leaving the tournament after losing this one.

In game one I did go off on my third turn with a rather lovely stack whose first iteration of the combo involved drawing my new hand of seven, drawing two additional cards (plus adding a Blue and a Black mana to my mana pool), and THEN resolving my Scroll Rack ability drawing 5 additional cards making the cards seen total for the new hand 14. With two coloured mana floating and 14 brand new cards there was almost no way I could fail to continue to combo from there. With a single black mana and seven new cards the fizzle ration is roughly 9%. After three or so rotations I tutored for the Emrakul with the intention of continuing to combo as he would have had mana for Council’s Judgement/Oblivion Ring after I had swung but he conceded as soon as the Emrakul was announced.

Game Two was rather unfortunate as I kept a slower hand which needed to tutor for both the Channel and the Mirror (it did have the mana and tutors though) which did not match up well to his hand of Qasali Pridemage into Jitte/Equip. On my final turn I had seven life and channel was cast. I had two black mana but only Diabolic Tutor in hand which left me one life short of tutoring for the Mirror and continuing to combo. Innumerable variable would have changed that game into a win for me but I chose the keep the hand I did and was punished.

Game three was just awful to play. I hand a hand that combo’d on my turn 4 (after his turn 3). It was a land light hand so I was just hoping that he did not have Null Rod etc but I assumed this was not the case because of the Jitte the previous game. Things were going swimmingly until he revealed an Ethersworn canonist to his Dark Confidant on the first flip. My Channel and Emrakul sat useless in hand (I had Muddled for Channel the turn before) and instead of drawing any tutors or creature destruction (of which there were 12) I continued to draw lands and mana rocks. I eventually had to crack my rocks to dig deeper into the deck and brainstorm away the Emrakul after I was below 15 life in order to find SOMETHING but no answer was forthcoming. My plans quickly hinged on his dark confidant flips but it was eventually removed and my opponent won the game handily.

I was shocked, I could not believe that the dream matchup had gone so lopsided but still extended the hand and looked for my next opponent.

0-2 (1-4 Games)

James O’Brien was my third round opponent and we were both tired. These games were a more casual affair (as most are in the 0-2 bracket) which ended in a distinctively different fashion from my previous games. My opponent was on some sort of BR midrange deck (sorry I didn’t take notes on this deck) and he kept a sketchy one lander and I went for an early combo which unfortunately fizzled. I had gone off with just a draw of seven cards (with some spare mana floating) and had drawn 4 lands, a Sensei’s Divining top and a couple of creatures. Even looking at the top three cards with the Top did not allow me to continue to combo. I did have a fetchland so I used that to look again and found the Channel so I cast my creatures and prepared to go off again. It took a few turns to gather the resources again but my opponent did not put up much resistance because of his mana situation putting him in the game too late and I was able to get an Emrakul on the board again.

The second game went quickly with a turn 1 or two channel and an Emrakul after a single Mirror. This game was a quick and brutal as those I had received earlier in the tournament. James was a good sport and we played another match after we had signed the match slip which was a not as one sided as our previous games had been.

1-2 (3-4 Games)

Overall my deck was not as well metagamed as it could have been. I went a little overboard in the anti aggro department with fully 10 or so card choices directly aimed at that matchup. Channel is a deck where you have only a few flex slots to play around with so while you have 8+ cards for the matchup you want the wide variety to ensure you have the right four cards to bring in against your specific opponent. With hindsight I would definitely have made some changes such as bringing in the Planar Portal to the main deck given the metagame in the room.  Other small changes I would make going forward would be the reintroduction of Preordain and a slight shifting of the flex slot configuration between main and side.

I believe Channel-Mirror still has what it takes to be a competitive Highlander deck. Grim Tutor losing a point was a great shot in the arm and made up for the point that Muddle the Mixture had gained a few sets prior. Its inconsistencies can be smoothed out with practice and practice with it I shall.

See you next time when I run down the first match I covered at the top table in the penultimate round of the event.